October 23, 2012

BC says, “You still watch movies on DVD. I love that about you.”

Kipling’s Kim in Humanities. It’s a far better book than I thought it was. I don’t think many in the class actually read it, so my lecture assumed the problem of conveying meaning in a contextual void. But, at least it was meaningful to me, and perhaps I communicated some of that. The book should strike modern readers favorably, as it is about diversity, though it doesn’t hold to modern shibboleths concerning diversity. We think we must admire diversity without judging it, without comparing one thing to another, and when we catch ourselves comparing, the thing least like ourselves must be preferred. This is a tenet of faith rather than a method of cognition. Kim compares merrily, accurately, shamelessly, and therefore his perceptions are sharper and more useful than ours can be. The book is also about choosing. If you choose a straight path, you are no longer free to wander; you have lost part of the potential of your character. If you do not choose the straight path, you lose power and are never anybody in particular at all. I cherished it as a boy without knowing exactly why. I was already on the path–though I didn’t know it–and Kim’s prolonged freedom seemed exhilarating. For a while I wanted with all my heart to be called Kim.

My students point out that I am to do two readings in coming weeks that I had completely forgotten about. Naturally, they conflict with everything else. These same students, in class just today, finally affirmed that obscurity and randomness are not necessarily virtues. I blew in my head the horns of triumph.